The Deer Stalker Page 8

  The ride across the plateau ended all too soon for Patricia, though, as she dismounted on the rim of a black chasm, she forgot all the other spectacles she had already seen. Sue led her aside from the group.

  “Marble Canyon,” she said, standing beside her. “It’s as far down to the river as the distance we’ve already come down from the rim. There’s the mouth of Bright Angel Canyon, on the other side. Rangers cross there in a cage, and sometimes tourists with guides. We hear a footbridge is to be built. And shore that would be fine.”

  Patricia had no words to describe what she saw. She gazed at a black V-shaped gap, vast as a valley between mountain ranges, somber and terrible, a grave it seemed for that dark red river. A sullen roar of chafing waters floated up, filling the desert silence. Patricia saw the winding river, frothy and turbulent between the constricting walls. This then was the secret of the Grand Canyon—that implacable, resistless river, flowing on forever, cutting, wearing, tearing.

  The whole scene affected Patricia profoundly. Here it approached intimacy, whereas from the rim above, depths and distances were beyond human comprehension. Here the abysmal bowels of the earth, the travail of the ages lay naked under the eye.

  This somber rent was neither beautiful nor glorious. It oppressed her, weighted her heart, tortured her mind. Dante’s Inferno! If it was so sinister in the full light of the noonday sun, what would it be at twilight, at dusk, at midnight?

  “Let us ride back to the Gardens,” Patricia suddenly suggested to Sue.

  The young girl pressed her arm understanding and without speaking a word turned to help her mount and led the way back across the plateau.

  It was very pleasant in the shade of the cottonwoods, eating lunch on the velvety green grass beside the murmuring brook. The air was drowsy, full of summer heat. Bees and flies buzzed around. Patricia noted with surprise the absence of birds. Through the foliage of the trees the red walls gleamed in vivid contrast.

  Higgenbottom did not appear to be in any hurry to start back; indeed none of his party seemed eager to begin the ascent.

  “Three hours ridin’—an’ walkin’,” drawled the cowboy. “Get good an’ rested here before we start.”

  Patricia saw that he was on the lookout for his friend, Nels Stackhouse. She herself was waiting and eager for the cowboy to begin his campaign. He chose a time, presently, when Patricia and Sue were alone. Then he seated himself on the grass, removed his big sombrero, wiped his wet brow, and then fired his first round.

  “Miss Clay, you said you wasn’t born on a hoss, like Sue hyar, but you sure beat any tenderfoot I ever saw. I wasn’t worried none about you. Why, you could tackle real bad trails.”

  “Indeed? Thank you, Mr. Higgenbottom,” replied Patricia, with gratitude that was not wholly pretense. Maybe the deceitful wretch’s flattery concealed a grain of truth! Patricia found herself enjoying the situation.

  “She’s got nerve and sense, Tine,” interposed Sue with asperity. “What’d you expect?”

  “Say, Sue, don’t I have tenderfoot women ridin’ mules down this trail most every day?” he drawled good-naturedly.

  “Shore. But not like Miss Clay.”

  “Wal, that’s what I was tryin’ to say. I’m sure appreciatin’ her, an’ you know, Sue, what a treat it is to have a girl like you on a trip. A guide has feelin’s, though mebbe no one would suspect it. An’ this job ain’t no picnic…. Wal, Miss Clay, I was goin’ to ask you how you like this little ride?”

  “It has been a wonderful experience,” replied Patricia sincerely.

  “Wal, that’s fine. Most ladies complain about somethin’. Now haven’t you jest one kick comin’!”

  “No, indeed. I’d be very ungracious to feel anything but delight and gratitude.”

  “But wouldn’t this trail ridin’ an’ settin’ in the shade like this, an’ lookin’ at the walls, be a thousand times wonderfuller if, say, they was jest a few of us an’ we was off the beaten track? Away from the tourists?”

  How intelligently he had read her mind, and how subtly he had stated the truth! This cowboy was a past master in the art of salesmanship.

  “Yes, I confess it would,” returned Patricia frankly.

  “Look heah, Tine,” spoke up Sue with spirit, “stop beating aboot the bush.”

  “Sue, I ain’t beatin’ round nothin’,” declared Tine vehemently, but with a grin on his ruddy face. “Can I help it if you’re smart enough to read my mind?”

  “Tine, I don’t know what you’re aimin’ to do,” replied Sue dubiously, shaking her blond head at him.

  “Wal, I jest think Miss Clay would love a trip over on the North Rim. An’ you’d love to go along. Now then!”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Sue rapturously, disarmed of her suspicions by her enthusiasm over the prospect of a visit to the North Rim.

  “Mr. Higgenbottom, it’s kind of you to plan a trip for my benefit. Please tell me about this North Rim trip,” Patricia said, making no effort to conceal her pleasure and completely forgetting that the guide had an ulterior motive.

  The cowboy’s response was something that almost broke Patricia’s pretended reserve. He got up from his leisurely crouch, and the glance he bestowed upon Sue was one that carried a meaning which was beyond her. His air seemed one of supreme assurance and nonchalance.

  “Wal, Miss Clay, this North Rim trip is no different from the Hermit trail trip or the Havasupi Canyon trip. You read about ’em in the booklet. The hotel company runs ’em. Girls, grandfathers, old women, an’ kids can take ’em. But the North Rim trip is different. It’s long, hard, an’ expensive. It’s seldom taken. We had only three parties all last summer and fall…. We take a pack-outfit an’ a cook an’ go down past here to the river. We cross in a cage swung on a steel cable, perfectly safe, but say, you’ll get some kick out of that! Then we tackle the fifteen-mile trip up Bright Angel Canyon. It makes this trail look like Fifth Avenue. For miles your hoss—for you ride on a hoss this trip—has to wade the creek, an’ right under beautifil waterfalls. If we’re lucky we get up on top the same day, mebbe by sunset. An’ say, sunset from the North Rim, lookin’ down a hundred miles of canyon, is sure enough to make an angel out of a sinner. We camp on top in Buckskin Forest, the finest woods in the world. There’ll be snow in shady places. An’ that’s good, ’cause we can camp anywhere. The North Rim is two thousand feet higher than the El Tovar. There’s the silver spruce trees—an’ if you love trees you must see them, an’ the big black squirrels with white tails, an’ the deer…. Honest, Miss Clay, you’ll see thousands of deer—born wild, an’ yet as tame as calves in the pasture. They come right into camp, an’ you can almost ketch the little fawns…. You won’t see a soul on the whole trip unless a ranger rides by. An’ rangers are scarce an’ Buckskin is big. It’s wild, lonely, but somehow awful sweet over there. Makes me feel queer! An’ sittin’ on that North Rim, at sunrise an’ sunset, by dark an’ by moonlight, is jest about as grand, I reckon, as goin’ to Heaven!”

  “Very well, Mr. Higgenbottom. We shall go,” replied Patricia simply.

  The cowboy rose swiftly. He gave his chaps a hitch and put on his gauntlets. His face presented an interesting study. It glowed, yet the ruddy color was less evident. There was something about him then that thrilled Patricia and surprised her. It seemed to be an emotion the intensity of which there was no apparent call for. Then she remembered he was playing a deep game out of loyalty to his friend Nels. Patricia liked him all the better for it. He was acting a part, but at the same time it was plain to see that his feeling for the North Rim was sincere. A thrill of excitement stirred in Patricia’s breast. The North Rim! She could scarcely wait to visit it.

  “Miss Clay, I didn’t make no mistake about you,” said the cowboy quietly; and Patricia knew she had been paid a rare compliment. “When would you like to go? Reckon I’d like a little time, ’cause I want a special outfit an’ hosses.”

  Patricia turned to Sue and was amazed and concerned to see that the
girl’s face had paled and her large eyes had darkened.

  “When can you go, Sue?” asked Patricia.

  “Are you—really going to take me?” returned Sue, almost breathlessly.

  “I wouldn’t go without you. Set a date. I’ll hire a car and drive over to Flagstaff for you.”

  Sue was plainly laboring under a temptation too enchanting to resist. The color rushed back to her cheeks and the light into her eyes. If Patricia had wished for some expression of thanks she would have been more than satisfied.

  “A week from Monday,” replied Sue, almost in a whisper.

  “Then it’s settled,” said Patricia trying to pretend she was making a matter-of-course arrangement, when in reality she was tingling all over with excitement and anticipation. “Mr. Higgenbottom, you be prepared to start with us early in the morning a week from Tuesday. Take supplies enough so we can stay as long as we like.”

  “All right—Miss—” he replied haltingly, as if divided between elation and an inhibiting emotion. He was gazing down into Sue’s upturned face.

  “Tine—you’ll want him” she asserted rather than questioned.

  “ ’Course I’ll want Nels. He’s the best packer an’ hoss wrangler of the lot. An’ he’s a pretty good camp-rustler.”

  “You needn’t enumerate Mr. Stackhouse’s merits,” replied Sue almost coldly. “But—to oblige me, won’t you take someone else?”

  “Sue, I reckon there’s little I wouldn’t do to oblige you. But I’d hate to go without Nels. Honest, it’s not all because we’re pards—”

  “Be on the level, Tine,” interrupted Sue.

  The blood suffused the cowboy’s face and he jerked up as if he had been stung.

  “Sue Warren, I am on the level,” he retorted hotly. “Mebbe more’n you’d ever believe. I’m standin’ up for Nels, agin anybody, an’ especially you.”

  “Then I beg your pardon, Tine,” returned Sue. “I didn’t mean to offend. I respect you for standing up for your friend, even if I do not admire your judgment.”

  Here the cowboy turned to Patricia, evidently in rather deep straits. Else he was a wonderful dissembler.

  “Miss Clay, please excuse me for bein’ sort of obstinate,” he said. “You’re hirin’ me to take this trip an’ you ought to know somethin’ about Nels Stackhouse. You met him up in the corral. Wal, he’s my pard. I’m bound to admit Nels has been a pretty tough hombre. But after he met Sue an’ this here ranger Eburne, why he bucked up an’ went straight. He hasn’t had a drink or a fight since he started ridin’ for this outfit. He’s saved his money. What more could anybody ask of a cowboy?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Patricia, smiling up at him. “I couldn’t, that’s certain, but perhaps Sue is more exacting than I am. The matter rests entirely with her.”

  “Shore you both—make me ashamed,” said Sue, averting her face. “I—I withdraw my objection.”

  “Wal, that’s fine!” exploded Tine, turning away. Then he called out: “By golly, heah comes Nels now with his trail party. He sure must have rustled along. … I’ll fetch him over.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE COWBOY’S mode of locomotion, with his short bowlegs and wide batwing chaps, was amusing even when natural, but now, when he appeared to be trying to fly through the air, it was ludicrous. When he reached Stackhouse he exhibited other violent indications of thinking well of himself. He patted his back, threw out his chest, shook hands with himself. Nels broke out in a wide grin. Presently Tine led his friend toward the spot where Patricia and Sue were resting.

  “Sue, if this boy is really objectionable to you, please be frank and tell me,” said Patricia.

  “Tine shore won’t go with anybody else. I know these cowboys,” replied Sue.

  “Gould we not engage others?”

  “Yes-s, but—” admitted Sue inconsistently. “If only Tine wasn’t lying aboot Nels!”

  Patricia thought it best to let matters rest as they were. The cowboys approached rather slowly, and it was obvious from his gestures that Tine was now trying to make something convincing to Nels. At last they reached the brook and leaped it with jingling spurs. Tine’s elation had suffered an eclipse. The other cowboy had lost the manner that had characterized him up on the rim. He removed his sombrero and bowed to Patricia, not ungracefully. The eastern girl thought she saw in this young cowboy what had attracted Sue and why Sue still loved him in spite of her better judgment.

  “Miss Clay, are you really engagin’ Higgenbottom to take the North Rim trip?” Stackhouse queried.

  “Yes, indeed. It’s all settled. He wants you to give him a hand,” replied Patricia. “I’d certainly appreciate your services.”

  “I’m powerful pleased, Miss Clay,” he said, “an’ I’d be proud to go, but you’ll excuse me, now, if I cain’t, won’t you?”

  “Why, certainly,” returned the New York girl, considerably surprised. She did not know what to make of this sudden change in the script. If the boy was not perfectly sincere, he surely was a wonderful actor. Then he turned to Sue.

  “Miss Warren, I reckon you didn’t tell Tine you’d be tickled to death to have me go?” he inquired.

  “Well, Mr. Stackhouse, I don’t remember using just exactly those words,” returned Sue demurely. There seemed just a hint of sarcasm in her soft voice, but she dimpled as she spoke.

  The cowboy turned to Tine. “There! She’s made you out a liar for the nine hundredth time.”

  Tine’s face grew ruddier. He threw up his hands. “That’s the thanks I get. How can I remember everythin’ perfickly? Talk to Sue yourself. Mebbe she’ll tell you jest what she told me.”

  Whereupon Tine clapped on his huge sombrero and trudged away with head bowed, muttering to himself.

  “You don’t want me on that trip, Sue Warren. Let’s have the truth! Do you?” demanded Nels, facing her again.

  “What if I didn’t?” retorted Sue pertly.

  “Wal, there ain’t enough mules in sight to drag me on it—if you didn’t.”

  “What else did Tine tell you?” queried Sue with sudden curiosity.

  “Never mind now. He must have been out of his haid. But he made me blamed sore. … I’m tellin’ you truthful that up on the rim, this mornin’, he said he would get Miss Clay to take the North Rim trip an’ ring me in on it. I was sure tickled…. Now leavin’ myself out, I think it’s a wonderful time for you an’ Miss Clay to go. I had a letter from my friend Eburne. You remember him. Wal, he wrote a lot about the deer. They’ve overmultiplied till there are thousands an’ thousands more’n they ought to be. An’ if somethin’ cain’t be done to save them they’re goin’ to starve.”

  “Oh, how dreadful!” ejaculated Sue.

  “Indeed it is. What can be done?” added Patricia with quickening interest.

  “Thad didn’t say. He sure felt bad, an’ I know he’s doin’ all that’s possible. … So it’d be a great time to go an’ see these deer. Mebbe the last chance! Anyway, I’m glad you’re goin’, an’ I’m sorry I’ll have to refuse.”

  “Have you refused?” asked Sue bluntly.

  “Wal, I reckon—it amounts to that,” he rejoined hesitatingly.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve a lot of reasons.”

  “But you’re employed by the company. Miss Clay has engaged Tine. He needs you. Says you’re the best packer and horse wrangler in the West. In fact he praised you so—especially your present virtues—that I feel you’re a stranger…. How can you get out of going?”

  “They can fire me if they want to. Fact is, I’ve a hankerin’ for a real hoss an’ ridin’ the range. I’ve been offered a job as foreman on the Coffee Pot outfit. Looks good to me.”

  “They’re a lot of tough cowboys,” protested Sue.

  “Sure…. But this here’s no way for us to talk before Miss Clay. An’ it’s time to hit the trail.”

  “What will Thad Eburne think of you if you leave the Canyon, where you’re so well liked, and go
back—to—to punching cattle?”

  Nels dropped his head and turned his wide sombrero around and around in his hands. “Reckon he’d think me plain no good.”

  “What will you think?” she flashed, with color in her cheeks.

  “Now, Miss Warren, you sure ain’t carin’ what I think about anythin’ or anybody,” replied Nels.

  “Nelson, are you bluffing—or on the level?” she asked.

  “Reckon we’re wastin’ time an’ sure not thinkin’ of Miss Clay,” he said and half turned away.

  “Then you won’t go for Tine?”

  “No!”

  “All right, then, Nels…. Will you go for me?” she asked softly.

  “Now—Miss Warren, of course, if you put it that way, I’ll be glad to oblige you,” he replied blandly and, bowing to her and Patricia he leaped the brook and strode out into the sunlight.

  “You shore can never tell about a cowboy,” mused Sue, gazing after him.

  “I’ll tell you sometime, little girl,” interposed Patricia gaily. “Cheer up. It’s all settled. We’re going to have an adventure.”

  “Shore, it might be more for me,” sighed Sue and for a moment was lost in thought. Then Tine’s call roused her to action. “Come on, let’s get on and be going. They’ll bunch the two parties on the way out. We want to be in front.”

  Back in the saddle once more, Patricia shaded her eyes and looked up toward the rim where they were returning. She gathered that the ascent would be harder work, but less wearing on the nerves. The more she gazed up that cleft in the perpendicular wall, the more she marveled that humans on muleback could ever climb it. Soon she was riding out of the sunlight into shadow. The great walls rose, dark bronze and dull red, vermilion, and then blazing gold, with a black fringe at the top. As she looked, the upper sunlit steps receded from her sight; the cavalcade left the plateau and began to ascend the first steep slope of the return trail.

  As the sure-footed animals strung out, Patricia noticed that the party had grown silent and absorbed with their own thoughts. By the time the red rock had been surmounted, Patricia was pretty tired. How high the blue limestone loomed! And the rim, so far above, seemed unattainable.